{"id":5249,"date":"2020-12-22T22:59:51","date_gmt":"2020-12-22T14:59:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.huangyizhou.com\/?p=5249"},"modified":"2021-06-04T13:00:40","modified_gmt":"2021-06-04T05:00:40","slug":"20201222maggies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.huangyizhou.com\/index.php\/2020\/12\/22\/20201222maggies\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 2 of 2020 Lake Tahoe Trip, Snowshoing to Maggies Peak in Desolation Wilderness"},"content":{"rendered":"

The second day of my 2021 Lake Tahoe trip, I ended up snowshoeing to Maggies Peak, followed by a brief tour of Emerald Bay State Park.<\/p>\n

\"Lake<\/a>

<\/br>Lake Tahoe beyond Emerald Bay<\/br>Snow Valley Peak in the background.<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Initial Plan: Ralston Peak<\/span><\/h3>\n

Following the previous day’s successful summitting of Roundtop Peak, my initial plan for the day was to hike Ralston Peak, a seemingly more magnificent mountain tucked in Desolation Wilderness that’s closer to Lake Tahoe. The 10.6km roundtrip distance would be similar to that of the previous day, but this one had more elevation gain, which I thought would be a suitable next level for my snowshoeing.
\nHowever, Ralston Peak’s trailhead parking lot wasn’t plowed in winter, which I was well aware of from some online comments. Despite that, it seemed to me that people still hiked the trail in winter as fine. With not much information around, I drove up to the trailhead in the morning to find out myself. And it turned out that the entire parking lot was covered in about 10inch\/30cm of snow. (Unfortunately I couldn’t present any photos here.)<\/span> Worse off, the field of snow was lower than the road shoulders (if it’s the other way around, I could try driving up, and in case I got stuck gravity would pull me back to the road)<\/span>. In addition, the snow field wasn’t very even with lots of “snow potholes”, which was probably too much for my rental 2WD Honda Fit.
\nI saw some online comments mentioned somewhere along “Sierra Pines Road” as winter trailhead, I didn’t find any parking spots along that residential road, nor did I find any along Tamarack Pines Road. Tamarack Park Trail and Camp Sacramento were not plowed in winter. With no parking spots around, I had to abandon the plan to hike Ralston Peak.<\/p>\n

Backup: Maggies Peak<\/span><\/h3>\n

With Ralston Peak unavailable due to parking, I quickly resorted to backup plan of the day by heading for Maggies Peak. It’s a shorter 6km roundtrip trail with 550m elevation gain, ideal for the day since I took the detour to Ralston and didn’t have that much day time left. <\/p>\n

Parking<\/span><\/h4>\n
\"Parking<\/a>

<\/br>Parking for Maggies Peak<\/br><\/p>\n

A note about parking at Bayview \/ Inspiration Point in winter.<\/br>In winter the large parking lot at Inspiration Point (red) on the north side of the road was gated off, so was Bayview Campground at the south (purple). A small area in front of the closed campground gate was plowed (blue), which I interpret as the parking lot. However, there were “no parking” signs at that lot, which I interpreted as only valid in summer and designed to keep the passage into Bayview campground clear. Parking there could be hard to find, especially in the afternoons where a nearby slope was popular with kids sledding. I didn’t see any cars being ticketed or towed for the day. Farther down the road, there might be additional parking (yellow). There were no other possible parking spots along Emerald Bay Road \/ CA89.<\/div>\n

<\/p><\/div>\n

Trail<\/span><\/h4>\n

In summer the trail to Maggies Peak \/ Cascade Falls started inside Bayview Campground. The campground’s winter closure added about 600m of roundtrip distance.
\nHere’s GPS tracking:
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